German Court: Rapidshare has to check all uploads for copyright infringement

According to a ruling published yesterday, a court in Hamburg, Germany has ruled that Rapidshare is currently not doing enough to combat copyright infringement and that its filter system is ineffective.

The ruling says Rapidshare must now become more active in finding files that infringe on copyrights, especially after rights holders makes the company aware of them. The new rule is very similar to that of the DMCA here in the States.

Besides taking down infringing content however, the company must also "proactively check content before publishing it" to see if similar files have been posted before and to see if those files infringed content. More strikingly however, Rapidshare has to log IP addresses of "potential infringers."

Rapidshare currently uses a MD5 Hash checking filter to stop the upload of previously removed material, but the court ruled that that was not sufficient as uploaders would only have to change a couple of bytes in the file in order to circumvent the filter. Archives with passwords are also very hard to check, if not impossible.

14 user comments

Quote:the company must also "proactively check content before publishing it" to see if similar files have been posted before and to see if those files infringed content. More strikingly however, Rapidshare has to log IP addresses of "potential infringers

hahahahahaha.. looks like we will all just have to move our jap pr0n to other places.. like sendspace/zshare etc ;)

Conservative.. err sorry.. Nazi Germany better remember what happens when you impose your laws on outsiders without their permission. I don't think they have any control over what a company does if the business is registered outside the country... Like the USA has no say what happens in Antigua etc.

Ozzy Binliner could make himself a very popular guy if instead of training terrorists with his millions of CIA dollars he set up large file sharing servers in Iran and other places.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 02 Oct 2008 @ 20:17

Nazi Germany was comprised of Fascists..not Conservatives. One core component of Fascism is when the government controls the corporations..kinda like what the Democrats are trying to do with the bailout bill.

Anyways..this will fail, as people will simply password their files and/or encrypt them with PGP.

In a court-order from July 2nd 2008, based on a copyright infringement of IBM Software in 2006 on rapidshare.DE, the German Oberlandesgericht Hamburg suggested that RapidShare should not only delete reported published copyrighted files, but also ban the responsible uploaders from the service in case they use a static IP-Address. For uploaders with dynamic IPs or those using proxies RapidShare should establish a registration process according to the court. Likewise RapidShare could deep-inspect all uploads of notorious infringers and check not only the MD-5 hash of the file but also the actual content. Password protected files of notorious infringers should be rejected by the service. [9] So far RapidShare has taken no actions to put those suggestions into practice. It's also not clear if the German sentence applies to the Swiss RapidShare.COM.

Nazi Germany was comprised of Fascists..not Conservatives. One core component of Fascism is when the government controls the corporations..kinda like what the Democrats are trying to do with the bailout bill.

Oh yeah - try to blame a bailout bill asked for by the Republican President to fix a mess caused by his Republican administration on the Democrats. Good thinking, dumbkoff!

The Democrats and the Republicans both share the blame because they all kowtow to Corporate money -- but statements like yours just make it easier for them. Both are trying to bamboozle people like you and divide people into (weak) camps so they can continue to run things as they please. Wise up or stay subjugated. Your choice.

Nazi Germany was comprised of Fascists..not Conservatives. One core component of Fascism is when the government controls the corporations..kinda like what the Democrats are trying to do with the bailout bill.

Mien Gott! Sorry man, fascist does NOT equal communist. Capitalists (read corporations) were cheerfully in bed in the Nazis, and not faking their orgasms either. That really is naive, read some history. And don't blame the Democrats for the un-regulated mess that's occurred, It's all lip-service- free-enterprise this free-enterprise that till the crap hits the fan, then it's "bail me out, I'm a neo-aristocrat, you need me".

I'm not sure what the state of Germany's agreements with other countries regarding court rulings are... but it only matters for the German rapidshare servers. if they removed all servers from Germany then German law would not apply.

whether or not the swiss rapidshare has to comply, or the "company" rapidshare depends on Germany's relationship with Sweden. Considering that not even America can get scanner countries to change their pirating ways despite the global implications makes me think rapidshare is just going to laugh at Germany.